Today barely a tenth of one percent of
Iowa's prairie remains. The state's topsoil
has dwindled to an average depth of eight
inches. Each decade another inch or so
erodes away. Productivity has its price.
A Bumper Crop of Industry
It's not only the soil that's productive in
Iowa. The state's often unsung industries
actually produce three times the dollar vol
ume of its farms. Of the nation's top 500 cor
porations, 135 maintain plants in Iowa.
Many of these, of course, are farm related
big-name implement dealers like John
Deere, food processors like Quaker Oats,
and the remarkable Iowa Beef Processors,
which over the past decade eclipsed Swift,
Armour, and others to become the world's
biggest meat-packer.
But Iowa also produces nonagricultural
staples, such as Maytag washers and dryers
(in Newton), Amana microwave ovens (in
Middle Amana), Sheaffer pens (Fort Madi
son), and Winnebago motor homes (Forest
City). Rockwell International, in Cedar
Rapids, makes printing presses and avionics
equipment.
Some 100 insurance firms are headquar
tered here-from Des Moines-based majors
like the Bankers Life of Iowa, American Re
public, and Equitable of Iowa Compa
nies to Farmers Mutual Hail Insurance
Company of Iowa.
Again, you expect Iowa to produce agri
cultural giants like Henry A. Wallace, who
pioneered hybrid corn and edited Wallaces
Farmer before becoming secretary of agri
culture and vice president, or Dr. Norman
Borlaug, the Nobel Prize-winning geneticist
whose new wheat strains spurred the Green
"Birdman of Kingman Boulevard," Des Moines' Vernon Schall keeps this corn-ear bird
feeder on his lawn-to the delight of localpigeons but the consternationof neighbors."Back
in the DepressionI often ate pigeons," Schall says. "Now I'm returningthe favor."
National Geographic,May 1981
618